In the past three years, more than 20 states have enacted new education choice policies or expanded existing ones. Several more states are considering adopting policies that would allow parents to choose the learning environments that align with their values and work best for their children. However, some critics have raised concerns that school…

Critical race theory (CRT) and the high-profile projects pushing the radical ideology's discriminatory ideas are trying to divide Americans by skin color and pit them against each other. The cultural fissures are manifesting in education, with heated arguments about curricula and classroom activism. This "Backgrounder" estimates how…

No previous research has directly examined the relationship between attending a public or private school as a child and people's attitudes toward Jews when they become adults. This article sheds new light on this issue by using a large, nationally representative survey of over 1,500 adults in the United States to see how childhood schooling is…

This report examines the short-term effects of the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) on students' non-cognitive skills and civic values. While a growing number of studies have evaluated K-12 school voucher programs along academic dimensions, few have focused on the development of non-cognitive skills and civic values. This study aims to address…

The big battles over school vouchers in American education have focused on programs serving low-income children who live in urban areas. Milwaukee's program, begun in 1990, is the biggest and oldest in the country, and the District of Columbia effort, funded by the federal government, has been the most carefully studied. Both have been focal…

In the last three decades, special-education programs in the United States have grown at a tremendous pace. Much of this growth reflects a growing incidence of students diagnosed with the mildest form of learning disability, called a Specific Learning Disability (SLD), and thus the hardest to distinguish from an ordinary cognitive deficit. Between…

In this paper, the authors estimate the effect of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP, or the Milwaukee voucher program) on integration in public and private schools. Their first question is straightforward: Do the student bodies at private schools participating in MPCP have a racial composition that more closely or less closely resembles…

Can spiraling special education costs explain why educational achievement remained stagnant over the past three decades while real education spending more than doubled? Policy makers, education researchers, and school district officials often make this claim. Special education students--goes the argument--are draining resources away from regular…

This study evaluates the initial effect of Washington, DC's Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) on the academic performance of public schools and its effects on the opportunities that District students have to attend integrated schools. The OSP is a federally sponsored school voucher program that provides vouchers worth up to $7,500 for an…

This report presents an evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship Program (CSP) after two years in operation. The program provided low-income families with scholarships that they could redeem at any participating Cleveland private school. The evaluation of the program involved a survey of two groups of parents in 1998: parents of children in grades…

A considerable body of research exists on whether students who attend private school with a voucher benefit academically. Whether public schools improve in response to the challenge of voucher programs, however, has been less thoroughly studied. This study provides new evidence on how public schools fare when faced with the challenge of school…

This document is a review of eight studies of five existing voucher or school-choice programs conducted by four different groups of researchers. All studies have found important benefits of private school choice for families. Voucher programs do not appear to select primarily the best students. In all studies of existing choice programs the…

This paper examines evidence on the "systemic effects" of expanding school choice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee is home to one of the nation's largest and longest-running school choice programs. If there are systemic effects from expanding school choice we should be able to see them in Milwaukee. This paper also introduces a novel…

The Education Freedom Index measures the extent of government-subsidized or government-regulated educational choices offered to families in each state. The Education Freedom Index score is the average of four components: charter school choice, subsidized private school choice, home schooling choice, and public school choice. This paper analyzes…

The Cleveland Scholarship Program (CSP), Cleveland, Ohio, is one of the school choice options available to families in the city. This report provides a snapshot of the CSP at the start of the 1999-2000 school year. Despite the claims of critics, the CSP contributes to racial integration in the city by providing families with access to private…